In the 11-year period of 2005 through 2015, canines killed 360 Americans. Pit bulls contributed to 64% (232) of these deaths. Combined, pit bulls and rottweilers contributed to 76% of the total recorded deaths. | More »

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Israel Pope Jr.Pickensville, AL - Deputies in Pickens County shot a pack of seven dogs that may have killed a 96-year old man and strewn his remains over property near his home. The dogs lived under an abandoned mobile home off Gore Road, about a half mile from where the victim lived. Pickens County Sheriff David Abston said the man who owned the dogs lived in a mobile home next to the one where the dogs were living. He apparently fed the dogs every day at 5:30 p.m.

The remains of Israel Pope Jr. were discovered on Monday and sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for examination, but Coroner Chad Harless said authorities may never know what actually killed Pope. "I feel it's not likely we're going to be able to make a decision on (the cause of death) because of a lack of evidence." According to relatives, Pope had been missing for three days prior to Monday, which places his time of death into question as well.

In the instance of Cora Lee Suehead, it took authorities nearly 9 months to determine the cause of death. It was ultimately ruled that she suffered death by four pit bulls.

3 comments:

Unfortunately if this is a hoarder, this is the kind of situation that No Kill encourages. Warehousing dogs without proper care just so some shelter can claim they weren't euthanized.

Anonymous | 7/02/2009 11:41 PM | FlagEither the dogs were owned, or they weren't. Where I live, if you habitually feed a domestic animal, you are considered the owner. It doesn't matter if you have registration papers, have ever taken it to the vet, or anything else. It doesn't even matter if you've never been able to touch it because it's too skittish, wild, etc. If you care for it in any way, you own it, which means if it damages someone or something, you're liable.

Honesty Helps | 7/03/2009 11:15 AM | FlagThis is how it works. Because animal control is the most hated department in government, maybe even more so than the tax collector, and people hear how bad the shelters are from the No Killers, they don't bother to call on things like this. The media makes hoarders to be saints, just trying to save the poor animals. Animal control budgets are the first to be cut, which means the service is affected.

If Animal Control were taken more seriously in regards to public safety and health, then they could have the ability to have enough officers to adequately police areas. If the public were to think that Animal Control is the good guy then they would call on such things as this situation and maybe this attack would be avoided.

We need to be more supportive of animal control. They are the only ones standing between us and pits. Most AC officers I know work from a backlog. They come in and have calls left over from the day before. That shouldn't happen. There should be enough ACO's to handle calls as they come in. Then there needs to be a public campaign to build up the public's confidence in AC so they will call.

I bet that neighbors were well aware of these dogs and probably didn't call them in.